London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

City Spy: The hard way to see Paris in the spring

Hats off to a group of saddle-sore senior executives from Royal Bank of Canada who have completed a 300-mile cycle challenge to Paris in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The gruelling four-day event started last week, bringing the City’s Upper Thames Street to a standstill as more than 20 RBC staff set off at 6.45am. RBC Capital Markets chief executive Dave Thomas, one of the brave cyclists, joked he was not sure what he had let himself in for.

Leo the Lion, the mascot for the RBC Race for the Kids, a five-kilometre race taking place on June 8, was on hand to cheer the team on. What with Mark Carney at the Bank of England and Moya Greene running Royal Mail, Canadians are in the driving seat...

Return of the grumpy grandee

Investors who bought shares in Merlin Entertainments must be worried.

The leisure parks group, which operates Legoland, Alton Towers and the Sea Life centres, hosts its first annual meeting on Thursday since floating last November.

It means that shareholders can come face to face with Merlin’s chairman for the last five years, Sir John Sunderland. He is the same chap who, as a Barclays non-executive director, upbraided a Standard Life representative for criticising the bank’s pay policy in public at its AGM last month.

Will the grumpy grandee strike again at Merlin’s event, which takes place at its Thorpe Park resort in Chertsey?

City Spy’s advice to shareholders is to keep quiet and sit still. Merlin also owns Madame Tussauds, so former Cadbury chief Sunderland is used to a room full of waxworks who don’t answer back.

Aston Villa look set to stay Stateside

Billionaire Randy Lerner’s choice of Bank of America Merrill Lynch to sell Aston Villa has raised a few eyebrows among the band who help buy and sell the playthings of the rich.

BoA has a long history with Lerner, so the appointment isn’t much of a surprise, but what does it and its star investment banker Peter Bell know about selling football clubs?

“Nothing,” says one expert. “There’s maybe 40-50 buyers in the world and you’ve got to know where to find them. It’s about selling hopes and dreams, not a hard-nosed investment. A glory toy.” With four other US owners in the Premier League at Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Sunderland, his money is on the Yanks gobbling up another club.

Chinese developers battle British bureaucracy

Tony Pidgley, chairman of property developer Berkeley, reckons his company doesn’t have to worry too much about the influx of Chinese developers into the capital. Speaking at an event to launch a London Chamber of Commerce and Industry report into the housing crisis, Pidgeley, who is also the LCCI’s president, argued the companies firms would soon go home: “They can’t live with the British bureaucracy.”